


Jealousy

by Thysanotus



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Erotica, Post War, Romance, The Quidditch Pitch: Eternity, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-11-25
Updated: 2005-11-25
Packaged: 2018-10-27 07:34:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10804707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thysanotus/pseuds/Thysanotus
Summary: Erm. I know this is totally not what you asked for,kellygreen, but my brain is perverted and this is what happened. I’m so so sorry. So. Happy belated birthday, hey?





	Jealousy

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Annie, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Quidditch Pitch](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Quidditch_Pitch), which went offline in 2015 when the hosting expired, at a time I was not able to renew it. I contacted Open Doors, hoping to preserve the archive using an old backup, and began importing these works as an Open Doors-approved project in April 2017. Open Doors e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Quidditch Pitch collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thequidditchpitch/profile).

  
Author's notes: Implied Remus/Severus, perhaps Remus/Sirius (if you squint and look sideways), unrequited Harry/Severus.  
 **Warnings:** Implied character death, post OoTP (spoilers), almost-voyeurism.  


* * *

Harry is jealous. He’s jealous of golden eyes, of a slightly crooked smile. He rolls over, punching his pillow. The vision is there, behind his eyes, and as he lies there in the high, narrow, white-sheeted bed, the images will not leave his mind. The too-innocent touching. The sideways glances. The panting, rough edged groans in the middle of the night.  
  
He flops back onto his other side, the bedsprings creaking. He can hear the soft murmurs upstairs, the prelude to a night of kissing, slurping, the illicit arousing sounds filtering slowly through the floor. Harry grabs his pillow and shoves it over his head, clamping it firmly around his ears. It doesn’t help. He throws his pillow to the floor, and in the bed across the room, Ron wakes up.  
  
“Huh? Wazzat?” he says sleepily. Harry sighs impatiently, pushing the air out with an audible hiss.  
  
“It’s not important, Ron. Just, go back to sleep, alright?”  
  
Ron rolls back towards the wall and his deep, even breathing provides an underlay to the panting from upstairs. Harry laces his fingers behind his head and tries to think of anything else. The moonlight shafting through the window paints silver on the floor. He sits on the edge of the bed, stretching his toes down to make contact with the floor. It’s cold, and it takes a moment before his other foot reaches down to join the first. Slipping off the bed slowly, attempting to prevent it creaking, he pads his way to the window.  
  
It’s not a full moon, obviously. When the full moon arrives in three days time, Ron and Harry will be packed off to the Grangers for the duration. Ron is looking forward to it. Harry… is not. He traces a finger idly through the dust on the windowsill. His cheek is pillowed on his other hand, and he shivers in a cold draught.  
  
Three weeks ago, Dumbledore sent him and Ron to stay with Snape. Two days after their arrival, Remus appeared on the front step. One hour later, Remus and Harry were arguing with each other for the first time. Supposedly, Remus had come to help Snape bolster the wards around the cottage and keep an eye out for Death Eaters, but judging from the noises emanating from the room upstairs, Harry thinks perhaps there was another reason all along.  
  
Summer had seemed an elusive, soft-edged hope four months ago. Harry was to be permitted to spend the whole holidays with the Weasleys, and the anticipation about never seeing the Dursley’s again seemed to coat every day in a mix of sugarcoated freedom. Things appeared glossier than ever before.  
  
Then the news came. Ron, of course, was devastated. Ginny had to be sedated for weeks. Harry was more concerned that he’d have to return to the Dursley’s. He wonders if this makes him a bad friend. Hermione didn’t sleep for weeks, racked with worry for her own parents and her friends. Harry didn’t have anyone to worry about. He feels jealous that other people did. In his moments of reflection, he wonders if it was his fault. Did Voldemort realise his jealousy? His unspoken wish that his best friend would be like him? Share his pain? Scratching a fingernail against the windowsill, he hopes not. He has enough guilt to carry around with him. It will blacken the sky until the end of his life.  
  
Avoiding the loose board in the centre of the room, Harry twists the doorhandle carefully, and slides through the narrow gap. He knows he won’t sleep with the racket upstairs, and he resolves to find the seventh year Potions text in Snape’s bookcases downstairs. He snickers wryly. Hermione would be pleased. Ron would check to see if he had a temperature.  
  
As he pads down the stairs, the noises upstairs increase in tempo. Harry shakes his head, and hurries down the final few steps. Finally discovering the text, tucked between a thick volume on South American rare plants, and an even thicker volume on dangerous snakes of Australasia, Harry curls by the window, and takes his wand from his pyjama pocket. With a muttered ”Lumos”, he opens the book to the first page.  
  
In the silence of the night, it’s not long before Harry falls asleep in the chair, head nodding to the side and book slipping to the floor. One foot is tucked under him and the other hangs like a broken wing from the arm of the chair. This is the position Snape and Remus find him in the next morning, face creased with the imprint of the antimacassar, fingers curled and teeth clenched.  
  
Snape stoops to rescue his book off the floor, face already drawing in lines of disapproval as he cradles the text tenderly. Remus pats his arm, reaching up to murmur in his ear.  
  
“The boy must have been exhausted. He mustn’t have been able to sleep, if he’s resorted to reading Potions textbooks in the middle of the night.”  
  
Snape stiffens, ready to bite out an angry retort, but he sees Remus’ smile and swallows the comment, returning the book to the shelf with one final reassuring pat to its cover. Remus moves to Harry’s side, gently nudging the boy, “Harry, Harry. It’s time to wake up.”  
  
Harry stirs, mumbling something inaudible, and twitches his nose.  
  
“That’s not how you do it,” Snape whispers irritably, and moves Remus out of the way.  
  
“Potter,” he snaps, and suddenly Harry is sitting bolt upright and fumbling for his glasses. Finding them skewed on his forehead, he slips them onto his nose, pushing them up with one finger in a gesture so familiar to Remus he has to turn away to hide the tears.  
  
“I’m sorry, Professor Snape,” Harry stutters. “It was late and I couldn’t sleep and – “ He breaks off in the face of Snape’s projected anger. Something inside Harry breaks at Snape’s implacability.  
  
“Look. I know you didn’t particularly care for the Weasleys, but they were almost like a family to me, and, well.” He stutters to a stop, knowing he can’t say what needs to be said, but someone is speaking in his voice, using words and phrases he’s never even dreamed of, telling Snape that grief is expressed differently by everyone, and that showing grief is not weakness. Harry thinks weakly that it sounds almost like Dumbledore, before the black swirls at the edge of his vision spiral inwards and drag him down.  
  
Remus watches open mouthed as Harry’s eyes roll backwards in his head and he collapses onto the floor. He doesn’t quite make the floor, however; Snape is there to break his fall before that.  
  
Snape carries Harry up the stairs, launching a diatribe on the insolence of teenage boys and their inconsideration for others, but only Remus notices the tenderness as he tucks the sheets around the slight figure.  
  
Ron sits by Harry, face pinched and white. Remus frowns in concern, gently drawing the door closed, fingers curled and tense around the door handle. He finds Severus in the sitting room, seemingly intent upon the book in his hands. Perhaps only Remus – and possibly Dumbledore, were he still alive – could have said there was something wrong. There is something in the way he holds the book, a suggestion of strained posture, a slight tinge of pink in the sallow cheeks.  
  
Collapsing into the chair facing Severus’, Remus cocks an eyebrow. “Well?” he asks. “What’s wrong with the boy, then?”  
  
Severus marks his place in his book with his finger. “Did I know that, Remus, then there would be no problem. However, I do not know, although I can theorise.” His voice sounds strained and weary.  
  
Remus moves across to perch on the arm of Severus’ chair. “I think he’s devastated about the Weasleys.” He runs his fingers through the ends of Severus’ hair.  
  
Severus shakes his head irritably. “Don’t do that, Lupin. It doesn’t help me think.” He taps the fingers of his free hand against the cover of his book.  
  
“You think he’s finally realised what war is all about – that real people, people he knows, people he loves – will die? They will be hurt, their deaths will not be pretty – “ Severus fights off images of blood black on the ground, darkening in the light of the lowering sky, and laughter. Always laughter.  
  
“He knows all that. I think, I think that this made it real. It wasn’t just words anymore, Severus. Words can build pretty castles, we can stack them up and say, see, this is what a spear looks like, this is death, look, this is how it feels to watch your lover dragged off in chains for a crime he didn’t commit! This is how it feels to find a house, fallen and desolate, the eerie luminescence of the snake and skull. No words can make those horrors real. You, of all people, should know that, Severus. “ Remus stops, his voice harsh and choking.  
  
“Words are never enough, are they? It is always actions that are required. Words can be bent to fit any purpose, but actions. Actions are harder to encrypt.” Snape lingers over the words, almost caressingly fitting each into the structure of the whole. He moves his hand to the small of Remus’ back, and they sit in silence, in this solitary house, until darkness floods the room.


End file.
